Into the future
Inside the stately red brick Science Hall, which hosts UW-Madison’s geography department, up four winding flights of stairs adorned with massive geological maps, the History of Cartography Project’s office is tucked away down a narrow hallway with uneven floors.
Just about every wall is covered with something, from meticulously arranged bookshelves and filing cabinets to a massive black and white printout of a world map from 1651 titled,
“A new and accurat map of the world: drawne according to ye truest descriptions latest discoveries & best observations yt have beene made by English or strangers.”
The office, like the series, is in some ways an amalgamation of the modern and the ancient.
In the center of the office, illustrations editor Dana Freiburger sits near a bulletin board adorned with a small world map similar to one you’d find in a school, and cat memes. Behind him, graduate student researchers maintain a TikTok forecast based on the moods of a 13-year-old internet-famous pug. It was a “bones day” — a good day, according to the TikTok account.
Of course, much more of the office’s work involves images of the old-to-ancient variety, and the staff is hyper-aware of the importance of maintaining the images of the maps, carefully fact-checking the work, and properly citing the sources.
Freiburger is one of many of the History of Cartography’s editors with decades of experience. He works to obtain copies and permissions to publish maps in every volume, carefully cataloging and slipping them into plastic sleeves if they are physical copies.
Next door is project manager Beth Freundlich, who has been with the project for 25 years. And on the other end of the office sits Jude Leimer, the managing editor. Leimer has worked on the project for 40 years, since she was a graduate student at UW-Madison. She’s read every single word in each volume at least once.
“To do something for that long, you have to really love it,” she said.
The work is rewarding and exhausting, Leimer said, and even as the team anticipates the project’s eventual conclusion, she noted that the arc of the history of cartography continues to change.
“I think the books, and the research that has gone into the books, has opened up a really new area of study,” she said. “People have looked at maps differently and are exposed to maps differently. And now things are changing again as paper maps may disappear, for all we know.”
Even then, Edney said, the way we read the maps of today can be informed by the history of cartography, whether that’s knowing that the “pins” in Google Maps can trace back to businesses using physical push pins to track distribution, or working to identify the limitations of more modern map projections.
“The fundamental point is maps are made by humans for the benefit of other humans,” Edney said. “They are as significant as diaries, novels, newspaper accounts, and they’re worth studying.”